Xindu City has lost its former prosperity. The city gates are closed tightly. People from villages within a radius of twenty miles outside the city have been moved into the city. On top of the city, more than 20,000 soldiers are waiting in formation. There are hundreds of thousands of grains in Xindu City.
It can last at least a year.
However, the morale of the army is generally not high, or even very low. Generally speaking, unless there is an invasion by a foreign enemy, everyone can work together to defend the country. However, this kind of domestic warlord melee is different. The sources of troops are from nearby states and counties, so it is impossible to
A good offensive soldier is your distant relative.
After a series of consecutive defeats in the war, they finally fell to the point of holding on to the isolated city. This huge frustration could never allow the soldiers to maintain high morale. Everyone was thinking about how to get out of the war and escape home.
But for the generals under Li Wujun, they had a different feeling. Li Wujun's battle deployment was unorganized. It was clear that the Jin army was the biggest threat, but he was not calm-minded, blindly attacked Tian Yue, made new enemies, and suffered a disastrous defeat.
Not to mention, he also lured the wolf into the house and summoned Zhu Tao. Now that Tian Yue has retreated, Zhu Tao shows no sign of retreating.
Li Wujun's stupid behavior of attracting wolves into the house made the generals generally dissatisfied. Complaints broke out in the military camp, and dissatisfaction became increasingly intense.
Li Wujun locked himself in the palace. He was under great pressure these days. Tian Yue unexpectedly withdrew his troops, but Zhu Tao occupied Shenzhou and continued to march to Jizhou. Only then did Li Wujun realize that he had done a big stupid thing and committed a crime.
Tian Yue made a serious strategic mistake. Tian Yue and himself were also facing pressure from the Jin army. He may not necessarily do anything to him, but Zhu Tao is a tiger and wolf. If he finds an opportunity, he will definitely chew him to the bone.
.
Li Wujun felt regretful and resentful. He drank hard and got himself drunk to escape reality.
That afternoon, Xingzhou military envoy Li Enze led three thousand troops to withdraw to Xindu, and he brought important news to Li Wujun.
Li Wujun happened to be sober and sat on a chair drowsily listening to Li Enze's report. It took him a long time to understand that the Jin army was also massively increasing its troops to Mingzhou, and the number of troops increased from 20,000 at the beginning of the year to 50,000.
Li Wujun was so excited that he was completely awake. Wasn't Guo Song being held back by Hanzhong? How could he increase his troops in a large scale? Did he also want to join the chaos in Hebei?
"How reliable is your news?"
"The news is absolutely possible. I got the news from the brother of a flag official who works under me in Mingzhou Prefecture.
Li Wujun hurriedly walked back and forth in the room. He knew in his heart that Guo Song's increase in troops in Mingzhou was certainly not for him, but for Zhu Tao.
Guo Song already regarded his territory as his own, but Zhu Tao occupied Shenzhou and Zhaozhou. How could Guo Song tolerate it?
Li Wujun saw another glimmer of hope before his eyes. If Guo Song and Zhu Tao were both defeated, he might still have a chance to make a comeback.
This shows that his strategy of inviting Zhu Tao to go south was not wrong. At least he lured Guo Song out, creating a situation where he could sit on the mountain and watch the fight between tigers.
After figuring this out, Li Wujun's worries disappeared. He jumped up and ordered: "Change my armor, I want to go to the city to patrol!"
He now began to pay attention to morale. He must maintain high morale in order to defend the city.
........
At this time, Zhu Tao personally led an army of 30,000 people and had occupied Hengshui County. To the south was Zhangshui County. After crossing Zhangshui River and walking sixty miles further, we found Xindu County.
Zhu Tao decided to cross the Zhang River in Hengshui County. The army was stationed outside Hengshui County. Zhu Tao sent soldiers everywhere to look for boats. When it was getting dark, the soldiers found more than 60 small wooden boats. Zhu Tao ordered these boats to be put together.
Put them together and put wooden planks on them to form a floating bridge.
It would take at least one night to build the pontoon bridge. Zhu Tao was not in a hurry and waited patiently for the completion of the pontoon bridge.
Since Zhu Tao failed to attack Hedong, he has been strengthening his troops and expanding his army in preparation for war in recent years. He married the daughters of nobles from Uighur and Khitan as concubines respectively, gained support from both families, obtained nearly 10,000 war horses, and formed a powerful army.
The Youzhou cavalry has nearly 100,000 armored soldiers at the same time.
Of course, Zhu Tao's military expansion also received strong support from his brother Zhu Si. After seizing Yangzhou, Zhu Si used the private merchant fleet to continuously send Zhu Tao a large amount of gold, silver, pig iron, and grain.
The Zhu brothers had reached a tacit agreement many years ago to establish a Zhu dynasty with their elder brother Zhu Si as emperor. However, Zhu Si had no children. A hundred years later, the throne would be passed to his nephew, Zhu Tao's son Zhu Sui, who is now the crown prince.
Zhu Sui.
Both parties are very satisfied with this result. The next step is to merge the territories of both parties and connect the territories into one.
At that time, Zhu Si's capital was still in Chang'an, and both sides wanted to capture Hedong and connect their territories through Hedong.
Unfortunately, Guo Song completely smashed their plan, and Zhu Si was forced to abandon Guanzhong and move the capital to Luoyang.
After the Hedong strategy failed to materialize, the two sides began to plan another plan to eliminate Tian Yue and Li Wujun and annex Hebei. The timing was after Zhu Si occupied the Jianghuai River and unified the north bank of Chang'an.
To be precise, it started last autumn, but they never expected that Guo Song invaded Mingzhou, which added variables to their plan and forced them to postpone it.
The war between Zhao and Wei triggered by the Iron Fire Thunder incident made Zhu Tao and Zhu Si see an opportunity at the same time. They contacted through pigeon letters and decided to use this opportunity to fully implement the plan to annex Hebei.
In the tent, Zhu Tao sat in front of the map and pondered silently. He was actually very worried about Guo Song. Although it seemed that Guo Song was focused on Hanzhong and had no time to look around, Zhu Tao also understood in his heart that this was just self-deception.
It's just a kind of self-comfort. He has moved the territory that he is bound to win, so how can he just let it go?
Zhu Tao sighed. He really didn't want to fight with Guo Song, but the arrow was already on the string, so he had to shoot. He and his brother had already launched a plan to annex Hebei. Could it be that because of Guo Song, he would give up the plan and retreat? Sure.
Impossible, no matter what, he could only bite the bullet and keep moving forward.
According to the plan, Zhu Tao was responsible for annexing the weak Li Wujun, and then he and his brother's army attacked Tian Yue from the north and the south.
only.......
Zhu Tao couldn't help but glance at Jingxing on the map. He deployed a total of 20,000 troops in Jingxing and Feihuxing. He was condescending and occupied the geographical advantage. Even if the opponent used iron fire thunder, he might not be able to capture it. As long as the defenders
If you are not careless, you should be able to defend these two fortresses.
Zhu Tao's eyes moved to Mingzhou again. What he was most worried about was Mingzhou. The opponent had been preparing for half a year. Guo Song would definitely send troops, and a fierce battle between him and Guo Song would be inevitable.
At this time, the soldiers outside the tent reported: "Your Majesty, the pontoon bridge has been built!"
"What time is it now?"
"Reporting to your lord, the first update has passed."
Zhu Tao thought for a while and then ordered: "Instruct the three armies to set up camp and cross the river at the fifth watch!"
........
Before dawn the next day, 30,000 troops crossed the Zhang River and headed for Xindu County, 60 miles away. At the same time, Zhu Tao's backup army of 30,000 troops also arrived at Raoyang, Shenzhou, and continued to Jizhou.
march.
The troops were very fast. At noon, Zhu Tao led 30,000 troops to Xindu County. They were still two miles away from Xindu County. Li Wujun sent someone to deliver a letter.
Zhu Tao read the letter, and the content in the letter was also what he expected. Li Wujun first thanked him for his rescue, but Tian Yue had already retreated in the face of difficulties, and the risk had been eliminated, so he hoped that he would also retreat accordingly.
Zhu Tao sneered and said to the soldier who delivered the message: "I won't write any more letters. You can relay my message! Tian Yue didn't really retreat, he just pretended to retreat. If I retreat, he will definitely come back. How about our two families joining forces?"
, completely defeat it to avoid future troubles.”
"I'm humble enough to go back and report!"
The messenger bowed, turned his horse and left.
Zhu Tao looked at the city in the distance and said, "Rest here and destroy the city tonight!"
As early as the beginning of the year, Zhu Tao sent 300 elite soldiers into Xindu City to work as porters. At the same time, he also hoarded a large number of weapons at the intelligence point in Xindu City.
He didn't bring any siege weapons when he went south this time, just waiting for the internal and external cooperation to capture Xindu City.
At the same time that Zhu Tao led his army to Xindu City, Zhu Si's 20,000 vanguard army began to cross the river by boat. They set out from Baima and crossed the Yellow River, preparing to capture Liyang in one go.
Zhu Si had previously received intelligence that Liyang County had less than 2,000 troops. Taking the Liyang County seat gave him a stronghold to move north.
Although Tian Yue already knew Zhu Si's intention, it would take time to mobilize and deploy troops. The 10,000 troops he sent were on their way to Liyang in a hurry, so he didn't know if he would be able to make it in time.